Karissa Dong

Students discuss the girls' soccer team and their season thus far. 

What Trump has done

Short rant on Trump's policies.

As a result of her efforts, English teacher Natasha Ritchie was recently named the district teacher of the year for 2016-2017. She was nominated for the award by fellow teachers.  

Nineteenth century statesman John C. Calhoun, best known as South Carolina’s pro-slavery champion, is perhaps one of the America’s most controversial figures. His name has become synonymous with Southern secession, the Confederacy and America’s heinous institution of slavery. Yet, in spite of criticism from the Yale’s student body, Yale University president Peter Salovey announced on April 28 that the name of the residential college called Calhoun would remain.  

Letters About Literature is an annual writing contest, where students submit pieces describing how an author’s work impacted their lives. Katrina Coglitore won the statewide contest and will move on to the nationwide competition. Anya Herne and Karissa Dong were state finalists.

In February, a jury found Peter Liang, an Asian American police officer in the New York City, guity of  the manslaughter of 28-year-old black man Akai Gurley. The verdict was condemned in much of the Asian-American community.

March is a crazy time for college basketball players, but it’s also an extremely chaotic time for the hundreds of students in the music department.

Music director Anthony Lanzino, who taught the guitar course and AP Music Theory, left the school due to family reasons. 

The lead came early for the Falcons in their Division II CCS semifinal game against Menlo on March 2, but it didn’t last.  

After losing the three previous games, the Falcons finally managed to score — and this time, against their fierce rivals.

Marching band's Rose Bowl parade recap.

On the cold evening of Nov. 13, terrorist attacks took more than 130 lives in the French capital, spurring an international outcry for peace. Paris was included in prayers all over the globe, and millions of Facebook users changed their profile pictures to the French flag. National monuments, from Australia’s Sydney Opera House to Germany’s Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, lit up in French colors in a pledge of solidarity.

The Nov. 7 contest was the cultimation for months of hard work for the more than 200 members of the marching band.

Arriving at San Francisco State University for the annual San Francisco music festival at noon on Oct. 23, the orchestra prepared to perform in front of fellow high school orchestras from the Bay Area.

After falling short of CCS last year by a narrow point margin, the girls on the varsity team hope to make a statement in the preseason matchups.

After the physical strain from gymnastics grew unbearable, freshman Annika Donez decided to put aside the gym mat for the diving board.

Recent national events — particularly the disconcerting reality of Donald Trump’s racially charged presidency campaign — have spurred the race conversation anew. They raise the question of the current state of race relations in America: How progressive, really, is the 21st century United States?

Linking elbows with his mother and twin sister, senior drum major Avi Arjavalingam was all smiles as he walked down the football field flanked on both sides by the waving flags of the Color Guard on the night of Oct. 2. 

Clerk Kim Davis crossed an ethical and professional line when she allowed her personal stand on gay marriage to conflict with her government-appointed job.

With Pasadena’s Rose Parade approaching on Jan. 1, the marching band has adapted its class curriculum to help prepare for the parade’s 7.2-mile march.

Senior Nina Harris spent six weeks of her summer working with the community of San Lucas Tolimán.

Since the fall of 2009, Hernandez has been the “gatekeeper” of the school, running errands for the office and performing a variety of campus tasks.

The Mathematics Association of America (MAA) announced that junior Celine Liang ranked among Top 11 in the prestigious USA Junior Math Olympiad (USAJMO) on May 11.  

AP Spanish 6, or Spanish Language and Literature, will no longer be offered starting next year. 

Even in the Silicon Valley, an area supposedly receptive to different ideas and cultures, blue-collar workers are sometimes looked down upon because of their jobs. These are the people who tend our gardens, provide us with meals or lay the foundations of our safe and comfortable home

Star long-distance athlete senior Andrew Harter is approaching the end of his high school track career on a high note. After setting a personal record (PR) of 10:18 in the 3200m at a home meet against Fremont on April 2, he scored another PR at the CCS.

Senior Avery Gigoux passed the baton to fellow 4x100m senior runner Laura Cummins after finishing the third leg in the race against Fremont on April 2. Running one of the last meets of her high school track career, she watched Cummins race down the track with a wistful smile. The girls’ relay team, which also included junior Kylie Stokes and senior Puck deRoos, finished second with a time of 53.82.

The American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), held on March 19, further challenged qualifiers from the AMC 10/12.

Halfway through the 100m dash at an away meet against Santa Clara on March 26, senior sprinter Tony Holt realized he wasn’t running full speed. He urged himself to focus on the race, but his hamstring had been bothering him since his first jump earlier in the meet.

Using her last burst of energy to push ahead of her opponents, junior Kimberly Chen sprinted to the finish of the 400m race at the away track meet against Homestead on March 17. With a time of 1:04.85, she placed first in the event.

The American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), held on March 19, further challenged qualifiers from the AMC 10/12. According to math teacher and Math Club adviser PJ Yim, 31 total students were eligible for the AIME: 27 students through the AMC 10/12A and 28 through the 10/12B, with overlap of students who passed both. Qualifying scores in either secured entrance to the AIME.

After watching the January release “American Sniper,” media users shared their discriminatory views of Arabs and Muslims. Twitter user @harshnewyorker stated the conviction of many: “Nice to see a movie where the Arabs are portrayed for who they really are — vermin scum intent on destroying us.” The Academy Award-winning Iraq war movie, adapted from the autobiography of now-deceased Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle, merely reinforced the American public’s bigoted perception of Muslims.

Sixty-four Saratoga students participated in the 90-minute MAA American Mathematics Competition (AMC) on Feb. 3.

Since I began to play the violin in third grade, I’ve listened to CD recordings of Itzhak Perlman, one of  the greatest violinists of the past several decades. When I decided to join a youth orchestra in sixth grade, my mom played his studio recordings in the car as she drove me to my auditions; when I picked up a new violin piece, my music teacher played his CD and told me, plainly, “to imitate.” 

The school will be offering a number of new classes for the 2015-2016 school year.

The boys' track team prepares for the upcoming season.

The girls' track team prepares for the upcoming season.

Now sitting in fourth place in the De Anza league with a 3-5-2 league record, the girls’ soccer team hopes to secure its chances of making CCS in the last few games of the season. The Falcons must win two of their three upcoming matches to qualify for CCS.

Despite the popularity of Tumblr as a haven of acceptance for all members of society, the social media blogging platform, like many websites, has its pitfalls. One of the most troubling is that users often use Tumblr as an outlet to vent their emotions, without knowing when to stop.

Play time together on the soccer field helps tighten the bond between twin sisters juniors Kaitlyn and Kimberly Chen, as they learn to get through tough moments and enjoy themselves during funny moments.

On Nov. 24, the Missouri Grand Jury declared no indictment for Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson. Wilson shot 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9, igniting a series of protests that led to the looting of stores, setting of fires and the arrest of hundreds of protesters in cities across the nation.

Seniors Claire Strickland and Sara Elzeiny worked with a local organization, Embrace Relief, to organize a blanket drive from Nov. 13-21, and collected a total of 10-15 blankets.

Second chances aren’t common, so when 2014 graduate Drew Bryan got one, he seized it. He had missed his chance to be recruited for cross country and track, since he didn’t achieve any standout times until the track season in the spring of his senior year.

While movies like “The Hunger Games” and “The Avengers” kindled an interest in archery for many people, junior Yena Jeong picked up the sport “before the surge of movie- or novel-influenced archers.” Now a cadet female Olympic recurve archer, Jeong grew up watching archery in the Olympics and has been fascinated with the sport ever since.

Saratoga High lacks the necessary support system for students interested in STEM.

College Board has applied the new Common Core standards to several Advanced Placement curriculums. 

Among 4,428 applicants who submitted 1,780 research reports or engineering projects for the annual Siemens competition, seniors Agastya Gupta and Deepti Kannan were named among the 300 semifinalists.

Proposals from school boards to whitewash the American history curriculum have returned, stirring protest and outrage among community members in Colorado’s Jefferson County near Denver. In response to College Board’s new AP U.S. History course, which now consists of a far more detailed account of the Native American struggle and campaigns like the Civil Rights Movement, the new proposition calls for a more positive rendition of history.

In collaboration with CASSY (Counseling and Support Services for Youth), a therapeutic service adopted last year, a new program is aiming to strengthen support systems on campus.  

Public schools are here to teach facts, not subjective faith. They’re here to educate the masses, not lead the pliable minds of young children to believe certain unprovable things like religion.

According to forbes.com, one out of every seven engineers is a woman, and female employment in STEM jobs has not grown since 2000. In 2010, statistics indicated that 17 percent of students in university engineering programs were women. The issue, however, isn’t so easily solved by a few motivating words or well-meaning programs.